Sometime in the evening of October 8, 1871, a fire broke out in a small barn on the southwest side of Chicago.
A little over twenty-four hours later, rain, seemingly sent from the heavens, finally put out the conflagration, but it was much too late. The fire that began in or near Kate O’Leary’s barn had cut a swath of destruction four miles long and a mile wide, right through the heart of the city’s business district, killing nearly 300. More than 17,000 buildings were totally destroyed.
Almost 100,000 people were left homeless and destitute with a cold and blustery Chicago winter fast approaching.
Like so many cities across the country still recovering from the trauma of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, the citizens of Syracuse rallied to the cause of their devastated countrymen.
For days the Syracuse Daily Standard ran front page updates as the search for bodies through the miles of smoldering rubble continued.
On October 13, the newspaper ran a series of headlines led by “More Bodies Found,” “Clothing and Bedding Wanted.” In the days that followed, Syracusans formed a committee housed in the recently completed Onondaga County Savings Bank Building (Gridley Building) that raised more than $35,000, which included individual donations from renowned brewing tycoon, John Greenway, to the tune of $250, $100 from the local cigar makers union, and hundreds of other individual donations from $50 down to a single dollar or two from regular folks.
In addition to the money, Alderman Alfred Higgins, who was an agent for the American Merchants Union Express Co., oversaw the collection and distribution of 58 chests and 27 barrels of clothing and linens. The Wieting Opera house also hosted a series of benefit concerts over the next two weeks, with the proceeds going towards the relief effort.
The horrific details of the Great Chicago Fire were front page news all over the United States.
In the ensuing weeks, former Syracuse resident, George Barnard, took a series of photographs documenting the disaster.
The stereoviews of Barnard’s images allowed for Americans across the country to see the scope of the damage and the depth of the need. Although scenes of death and destruction were Barnard’s forte, it was sheer coincidence that the pioneering photographer found himself in Chicago that October.
Barnard began his career in photography during the medium’s infancy, entering the field in 1842, just three years after Louis Daguerre invented the process (daguerreotype) of capturing images on silver-plated sheets of copper. He moved to Oswego in 1846 and opened a studio there, honing his craft.
On July 5, 1853, Barnard’s camera captured the burning of a massive mill and grain elevator near Fort Ontario. Foreshadowing his later work as a documentarian of devastation, Barnard’s daguerreotype of the blaze is considered by historians to be the first “action” news photograph in American history.
In 1854, Barnard moved to the bustling city of Syracuse. He set up a new studio in Hanover Square’s “Granite Building” (the longtime site of Koolakian’s Men’s Store), where he produced the earliest known images of the city. In 1859, Barnard left Syracuse and moved to New York City.
This fateful decision brought Barnard into the orbit of Matthew Brady, the most famous American photographer of the 19th century. Barnard worked for Brady in his studios in New York and in Washington D.C. In point of fact, many of the photographs published under Brady’s imprimatur after 1860 were taken by other photographers, Barnard included.
In March 1861, Brady assigned Barnard to document Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration. This was the beginning of the most significant period of Barnard’s career.
Over the course of the next four years, Barnard and his camera captured some of the most significant images of the carnage wrought by the war between the states, many of them on wet 11′' x 14′' glass plates.
From the very first volunteer regiments arriving in Washington, to Bull Run and his work as the Army’s Chief Photographer documenting General William T. Sherman’s exploits in Georgia and his “March to the Sea,” Barnard produced some of the most iconic images of the war. In the process, he perfected the techniques he would employ in his documentation of the Great Chicago Fire, including his magnificent panoramic work.
Having only recently settled in Chicago a few months before the blaze to be closer to his sister and her wealthy husband who had offered to underwrite a new studio for Barnard, he was one of the 100,000 left homeless after the new downtown studio was destroyed by the fire.
Able to save only one camera, which he miraculously held above his head as he escaped the flames by wading chest-deep into Lake Michigan, Barnard’s incredible photographic record became the definitive images of the disaster and were reproduced in stereographic form all across the world.
A century and a half later, Barnard’s images continue to inform and illuminate the past, though his name is barley known, while that of Matthew Brady and Mrs. O’Leary’s cow continue to live on in the public consciousness.
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